Gylfi Sigurdsson believes that Iceland’s remarkable improvement in the last decade is down to the vastly-improved coaching standards in the Nordic country and their increasing pool of foreign-based players.

Iceland’s march up the international footballing hierarchy has been universally viewed as a scathing indictment of Malta’s perennial failure to raise the level of its football across the board.

Speaking to Times of Malta ahead of this evening’s friendly match against Malta at the National Stadium, Sigurdsson, who turns out for English Premier League club Swansea City, said: “I think it’s a big reason.

“Of course we have a lot of players that have moved abroad when they were quite young, so they’ve got both experience and good coaching at a young age.

“I’ve said it before a lot of times, the main reason about this team is that we’ve played together for  a long time.

“The majority of the players have been together since we were in the Under-16s and Under-17s and we know each other really well.

“The coaching in Iceland is actually very good. We’ve got educated (qualified) coaches and they’ve done a lot, not just getting their badges, but a lot of work learning from other teams abroad.

“And I think they help the youngsters because the training is much better than what it used to be.”

Everyone back home expects us to win every game, it is different but it’s good for the team

Sigurdsson said today’s tune-up is an opportunity for coach Heimir Hallgrímsson to give a chance to the fringe players but stressed that Iceland are eager to end their commitments for 2016 on a top note.

“The most important thing is to give a chance to the players who were on the bench for the last few games, give them the chance to show how good they are,” the 27-year-old midfielder said.

“This is our last game of the year and hopefully we can finish it with a win.”

Iceland, currently ranked 21st on the FIFA list, are favourites to beat Malta whose ranking position plummeted to 178th last month.

Tough game

However, Sigurdsson is wary of Malta’s defensive prowess.

“Yeah, we’ve seen the last results, Malta are not a bad team,” he said.

“They lost 2-0 against England and I think the other night they lost 1-0 to Slovenia. They (Malta) are improving, they are tough to beat and, defensively, they are very organised.

“They’ve got an Italian coach and they love to defend really well, so it’s going to be a tough game.

“For us, we want to finish the year well.”

Iceland come into this evening’s game on the back of a 2-0 reverse to Croatia in Zagreb, their first defeat in World Cup qualifying Group I which also contains Ukraine, Turkey, Finland and newcomers Kosovo.

Sigurdsson admitted that their march to the Euro 2016 quarter-finals in France last summer, where they claimed the scalp of England in the Last 16, has heightened their fans’ expectations but he sees that as a positive thing for Iceland.

“We knew before this (World Cup) group started that we were in a really tough pool ,” Sigurdsson observed.

“Four teams were in the Euro, there is Croatia, Ukraine and Turkey as well. It’s a very tough group but this team is thriving on the pressure that has become a lot more than what it used to be before the Euros.

“Everyone back home expects us to win every game, it is different but it’s good for the team.”

Iceland are third in their World Cup pool with seven points from four games, three behind leaders Croatia and one adrift of Ukraine.

At club level, Swansea City have had a terrible start to their Premier League campaign, collecting only five points from their opening 11 games. They are sharing bottom spot with Sunderland but Sigurdsson is confident that the Welsh side will emerge from their current slump.

“I think we can turn it around,” Sigurdsson, who also had a spell with Tottenham Hotspur, said.

“It has been a tough start, 11 games into the season now and only five points (gained).

“I mean we need to change things very quickly, we don’t want the gap between the bottom three and the teams above us to become too big.

“Hopefully, in the next few games we can get a win and once that happens, I’m pretty sure we start collecting points.”